What’s Behind Star Wars: The Old Republic’s Decline?

Posted on May 07, 2012

Earlier today, Electronic Arts had its stuffy quarterly report. The number, fact, and strategy filled report was of little interest to most MMO gamers until the mention of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Following the recent trend of LoreHound coverage, the mention wasn’t good. According to the publisher, TOR lost 24% of its subscribers, shedding

Two of My Favorite RPG Past Times Finally Coming To Rift (Patch v1.8)

Posted on Mar 30, 2012

I’ve been a sucker for fishing and cooking, or survival as its known in Rift, two new optional tradeskills being added in Patch v1.8, for as long as I could remember. Even in the single-player RPG days, I’d pick-up a fishing pole or cook a prize-winning dish for my party. They’re skills I’ve employed in

RIFT Subscription Packages At Deep Discount Until End of March

Posted on Mar 29, 2012

I’ve been clambering for subscription-based MMOG publishers to investigate alternative subscription rates for years. Not just because of the recent “external” pressure from the popularity of the free-to-play model. That’s a more recent occurrence. Even before the new (and exciting) business model began encroaching on the juvenile market, I was suggesting that smaller developers experiment

TERA To Feature “RIFT” Like Invasions

Posted on Mar 09, 2012

Called the Nexus system, TERA will feature “dynamic” public events where portals will randomly open up in the game world, allowing monsters from the enemy’s realm to pour in. Pretty much the same thing that is implemented into RIFT‘s system. When a “Nexus portal” opens up, a message will be announced on the server, and all players

RIFT Celebrating Linniversary. Did I do That Right?

Posted on Mar 01, 2012

To celebrate the March 1 launch of Rift last year, Trion Worlds is kicking off a one-year anniversary extravaganza. Seriously, what else did you expect the company would do? From February 29 until March 31, all players, Lite or subscribers, can experience everything that Patch 1.7 Carnival of the Ascended has to offer, from carnival

Guild Wars 2 Gets One Million Beta Signups in 48 hrs

Posted on Feb 24, 2012

In just over 48 hrs, ArenaNet received 1 million beta signup to its closed beta testing phase. It is quite the milestone, but does that really mean anything anymore? Over the last few years, just about every triple A title has hit the million beta signup mark including: Age of Conan, SWTOR, Warhammer Online, Aion,

An Opinion on Macros and AddOns in SW:TOR

Posted on Feb 13, 2012

As we close in on two months of the anticipated and well enjoyed game, by Beararms, Sephalon, and I, issues and bugs have come and gone with the normal development cycle of any new MMO. Yes, some features have been missing that the playerbase has deemed “mandatory”. Features that are essentially assumed these days. Yes,

Rift Goes Free-to-Play With Rift Lite

Posted on Feb 06, 2012

Been holding out on giving Rift a try in the hopes it’ll go free to play? Now’s the time! TrionWorlds  has finally taken a first step toward the free-to-play dream – now you can play the first 20 levels for free! There’s no time limit, and no credit card required, all you need is the

EA Q3 FY12 Earnings Call – SWTOR Sells Over 2 Million Units

Posted on Feb 01, 2012

The good thing about being a public company is that they have to release their subscription and sales numbers, so while we can only guess how many subscribers games like RIFT and LOTRO have, we only have to wait for a quarterly report for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It seems SWTOR did better than EA expected, the

Currencies, Tokens, Commendations…Enough

Posted on Jan 26, 2012

In the real world we all use a single currency system, ok, maybe two for some of the EU countries that still accept their old currency, but for most of us there’s only one. If you travel to another country you’ll have to exchange your money for whatever currency that country uses, but you remain